Blogtopia (y,sctp!) is in crisis. Now no one is certain who or what we’re referring to when we mention the “Great Orange Satan”.
Now John Boehner (r-Ohio) will be the next Speaker of the House – the people who caused this mess in the first place are back in charge.
A year and a half ago:
…And the nation now realizes that we are right and they are wrong. I mean John Boehner [R-Ohio] is a good guy, actually he’s a, he’s a good guy. He said on television, he said, “Well, you know these Democrats they just think different.” Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. [laughter] I mean, right on soul brotha, I mean. [laughter] Of course we do. [laughter] I’ve been trying to tell ’em, “We’re right, they’re wrong. If you’re right you think differently.” [laughter] [applause] [voice: “Yeah!”] They’ve been wrong for eight years. [applause] And the nation is tired of wrong. [applause] [cheers]…
Seems like Lt. Governor Peter Kinder has got his dander up because members of the Obama administration think they have better things to do than respond to his publicity stuntsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act. I mean, it’s been four whole month already and the defendants named in the suit, Kathleen Sebelius, Eric Holder, Hilda Solis, and Tim Geither, haven’t yet snapped to it. To be fair, federal rules specify that government employees named in a lawsuit respond within 60 days and it has now been more than two months since Kinder amended his suit in the wake of the Proposition C victory.
It’s got the volatile Kinder all worked up and now he’s stamping his figurative feet by filing a “motion to compel” while huffing and puffing in the press about the slight – which he characterizes as a “further expression of contempt and arrogance against the people of our state.” Comtempt for penny-ante opportunists like Kinder more likely.
….WALLACE: Congressman Boehner, finally, House Republicans – and I don’t mean to be unkind on a Sunday – have lost more than 50 seats in the last two elections with you as a leader, and now the leader.
Why are you the man to bring them back from the political wilderness?
BOEHNER: Well, if I thought that I was to blame for those losses, I wouldn’t have run for this job. And I can tell you my colleagues would not have re-elected me.
We’ve got a long way to go. The American people have issues. They’ve got concerns. We need solutions, solutions to the issues that the American people care about that are built on our principles.
And I believe that re-energizing our party, re-energizing the idea machine that we used to be, is a step in the right direction.
I think our fight last year on energy that lasted three or four months was a very good fight and showed us how to win, how we could grab an issue, grab the attention of the American people and succeed.
And so you’ll see a lot of effort on our part to be the party of new ideas. I don’t think we can be the party of no. There are going to be times when we do have disagreements and we do have to say no and be the loyal opposition.
But at the end of the day, I think that we have to be the party of new ideas, new solutions, and attract more Americans to our party….
[emphasis added]
“…I don’t think we can be the party of no….”
Well, that didn’t last very long, did it? Funny, I don’t recall an editorial in the local paper on this subject at the time.
An editorial in today’s Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal, High Broderism writ large:
….A Blue Dog Democrat, budget hawk Steny Hoyer, Maryland, would be a good replacement for Pelosi, his party and the House. Being a fiscal conservative is always a benefit to the public, especially in these times. Apparently, however, the best Hoyer can hope for is to take the minority whip spot, and even that is not a certainty with the party liberals casting ballots.
Oddly, liberals appear even stronger among House Democrats following the party’s November nightmare. The reason is as simple as the numbers: In districts held by conservative Democrats, such as U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, voters cast their ballots for Republicans, and with so many conservative Democrats ousted, what is left to dominate the party are liberals, mostly from the East and West coasts.
Democrats seem intent on going with who brought them to the party – even at the risk of political date rape – meaning where Pelosi’s agenda has taken them is bad, but could get worse in 2012….
Yep, that’s what someone wrote.
“…In districts held by conservative Democrats, such as U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, voters cast their ballots for Republicans…”
Uh, republicans cast their votes for republicans. You think maybe a few Democrats didn’t turn out in an off year election?
Two years ago:
Official Election Returns
State of Missouri General Election – 2008 General Election
So, ten thousand more voters cast ballots for Vicky Hartzler in 2010 compared with the number who voted for a post turtle in 2008. And the republicans were more motivated this year? Yeah, and Democrats stayed home.
Four years ago:
Official Election Returns
State of Missouri General Election – November 2006 – General Election
“…and with so many conservative Democrats ousted, what is left to dominate the party are liberals, mostly from the East and West coasts…”
And what are Lacy Clay (D), Emanuel Cleaver (D) and Russ Carnahan (D) in Missouri? Chopped liver?
Raul Grijalva (D) and Gabrielle Giffords (D) in Arizona? Tammy Baldwin (D) in Wisconsin?
You think maybe that Democratic voters didn’t bother to vote for Democratic Party candidates who were running away from the accomplishments of their party?
“…even at the risk of political date rape…”
That was a very poor choice of words.
What is missing in the editorial is any mention of the two years of the rhetoric on the right and their agenda of complete obstruction. How about the big bucks spent on campaign ads paid for by right wing front organizations?
There are important lessons in life. Never eat at a diner called “Mom’s”, never buy into an investment scheme promoted by a guy named “Slick”, and never ever take any political advice from a “moderate” journalist.
Besides, no one representing Missouri’s 4th Congressional District in January 2011 has a vote in that matter.
It takes a certain minimal intelligence for the truly dim to have a notion of their own dimness, but this is denied George Bush. He has the self-awareness of a bison
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
….The process of historical revisionism has, like everything else, speeded alarmingly in the internet age. The emergence of Sarah Palin as an imaginable presidential candidate, allied to the unending travails of Obama, have induced in the amnesiac, the obtuse and the plain bananas a fondness for the memory of George W Bush.
It will not spread. If this great reader of history is concerned for his place in it – and that, needless to say, is why he hired a bright young groupie from Yale to write this memoir in something approximating English – he needn’t fret. In those few lists ranking all the presidents compiled since he left office, W is invariably in the bottom five.
For the two imbecile wars he began, for condoning torture by denying waterboarding was torture at all on the grounds that his lawyers said it was legal; for turning the surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton into the crippling deficit that is bringing the age of American hegemony to a startlingly abrupt end; and for being the pitiably Wagnerian fool who stumbled on to the grandest stage without any apparent clue why or for what earthly purpose, there he will forever remain.
The former veep candidate (and journalism major) misleads readers on the WSJ with selective quotes
By Ryan Chittum
….So, Palin is hammering the Journal and Reddy for pointing out that she’s flat wrong about grocery prices going up significantly in the past year. What does she do? She quotes a separate Journal story that confirms what Reddy is saying-and cuts out that part with three dots. Nice!
Palin has a journalism degree, so I’m guessing she knows what an ethical no-no it is to misquote somebody like that. It ought to be awfully hard for her to get on her pedestal and condemn the media when she can’t even quote somebody honestly. How about to make it up to Reddy, Palin lets a real reporter like him fly out to Wasilla to interview her for once instead of going to her house folks at Fox News?
Maybe they can talk about the possible wave of food inflation coming our way.
It looks like the Wall Street Journal and the Columbia Journalism Review won’t be able to sit at the lunch table with all the other kewl kidz for a long while.
U.S. Rep-elect and tea party favorite Vicky Hartzler is going to Washington with a promise to cut spending. Of course, she’s not keen on the idea of messing with Medicare, Social Security or the military, the popular programs which pose the country’s long-term deficit problem.
Instead, Hartzler proposes that Congress think about freezing its pay and other fiddling-while-Washington-burns gestures.
Hartzler says she’s open to the idea of reducing farm subsidies, but she’s hinting that fields of corn are tantamount to military bases because they provide “food security.” It just so happens that Hartzler Farms Inc. is one of the recipients of freedom-ensuring USDA subsidies. Hartzler and her husband, Lowell, collected $774,489 in farm aid from 1995 to 2009, according to Environmental Working Group….
Hey, when those Rooskie tanks come rumbling down U.S. 50 we can throw corncobs at them.
A tip of the hat to our good friends at Fired Up!.
U.S. Rep-elect and tea party favorite Vicky Hartzler is going to Washington with a promise to cut spending. Of course, she’s not keen on the idea of messing with Medicare, Social Security or the military, the popular programs which pose the country’s long-term deficit problem.
Instead, Hartzler proposes that Congress think about freezing its pay and other fiddling-while-Washington-burns gestures.
Hartzler says she’s open to the idea of reducing farm subsidies, but she’s hinting that fields of corn are tantamount to military bases because they provide “food security.” It just so happens that Hartzler Farms Inc. is one of the recipients of freedom-ensuring USDA subsidies. Hartzler and her husband, Lowell, collected $774,489 in farm aid from 1995 to 2009, according to Environmental Working Group….
Hey, when those Rooskie tanks come rumbling down U.S. 50 we can throw corncobs at them.
A tip of the hat to our good friends at Fired Up!.
By The Editorial Board | Posted: Monday, November 8, 2010 9:00 pm
Just days after Missouri voters approved tough new restrictions on puppy mills, Missouri lawmakers are talking about amending or overturning them.
In most states, such contempt for voters would be shocking and surprising. In Missouri, it’s old hat.
Last May, seven months before voters had their say, rural legislators tried to preempt the vote by prohibiting citizen initiatives involving any aspect of agriculture. It was blatantly unconstitutional. But no fewer than five bills containing similar language were introduced.
Now that Proposition B, the so-called Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act, has been approved, lawmakers are gearing up to override it….
…Agribusiness interests say the bill does nothing to boost enforcement and is a feint by the Humane Society to increase its leverage against big livestock.
“The dog-breeder issue is simply the beginning, we feel, of what can happen in the future with a broader agenda relating to agriculture,” said Estil Fretwell, spokesman for the Missouri Farm Bureau.
Agribusiness recently formed Missourians for Animal Care to fight the initiative. The chairman is the director of the Missouri Pork Association.
The Humane Society’s Pacelle said the puppy mill bill had nothing to do with livestock and that the industry used the same false argument about threats to farmers before Missourians approved a cockfighting ban in 1998….
[emphasis added]
The statewide vote:
Unofficial Election Returns
State of Missouri General Election – November 2, 2010 General Election
Tomorrow (Nov. 8 10) Repower America will give Peabody Energy an award – their state level Snake Oil Award for Public Deception. Peabody’s award will be presented at 12 p.m. at a red carpet event just outside 701 Market St., which, in case you don’t recognize the address, is Peabody Energy’s headquarters. You will be more than welcome to attend and join in what promises to be lively festivities.
To win the Missouri award, Peabody had to beat out such big-time polluters as Ameren. How did Peabody do it?
Remember who won last Tuesday’s Senate election? Let me remind you – our new senator will be Roy Blunt, the same guy who in 2009 declared that “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.” In other words, our new GOP Senator pits his knowledge of climate science against an overwhelming scientific consensus and is willing to bet our future on his conclusions.
Why is Blunt so cavalier about the science of climate change, not to mention the opportunities posed by green industry? It might have something to do with all the money from big oil and coal that he has received over the years. Among these contributors, Peabody Coal employees and political PACs enriched Blunt’s recent Senate campaign to the tune of $37,000 dollars, comprising one of his largest blocs of industry donations.
Get the picture yet? Peabody is a major source of campaign funds for Missouri and other coal state politicians; company lobbyists and front groups spent over $8.4 million to influence congress in 2008 alone. Repower America is just trying to give credit where credit is due:
2010 has been quite the year for environmental disasters caused by big oil companies and professional polluters. The depths to which the fossil fuel companies and their front groups have sunk this past year are unprecedented. Corporate polluters have hijacked our democracy, devastated our environment, denied the science of climate change and made record profits doing so. Repower America wants to expose the polluters for exactly what they are: Snake Oil Salesmen.
Thanks in part to energy interests like Peabody, we’re stuck for the next few years with the climate deniers, the Roy Blunts of the political world, deciding our energy policy and the result will not be pretty. Not only will there likely be no meaningful energy legislation during the next couple of years, plans are already underway for a full court press to neuter the EPA and the Clean Air Act. The honchos at Peabody Oil can rest easy in the knowledge that their dollars have been well-spent.
As for the national award, now that it is clear what the big oil and coal companies have to do to win the award – devastate the environment, poison the climate debate, and purchase politicians so that they can do so with impunity – it’s clear that Koch Industries is a natural as the national level winner, easily beating out such giants as Massey Energy and BP. Not only does Koch Industries get the big prize, the folks at Repower America have gifted them with their own commemorative Website, which catalogs the “lies and environmental offenses by Koch Industries and its owners, the brothers Charles and David Koch.” Visit the site, poke around and pick up some new information about the cynical efforts of the Koch boys to buy our government so that you can show the appropriate level of appreciation when you attend the award ceremony tomorrow.
The execs at AmerenUE aren’t fools. They know they’ve gotta move fast because the EPA may well decide to reclassify coal ash as hazardous waste, and that decision could come as early as this fall. If that happens, FEMA regs would prohibit Ameren from putting its next landfill for coal ash on the Missouri river floodplain at Labadie in Franklin County.
Now you have a chance, and it’s your last chance, to have a say-so about how the EPA rules on coal ash impoundments and landfills. The EPA is taking public comments until November 19th–that’s a week from this Friday–and environmental groups have been aiming to get half a million people to e-mail the agency. Half a mill is the old comments record, and we want to meet or break that.
What environmental groups want is for the EPA to forbid coal ash landfills near water or on floodplains and for the EPA to adopt Subtitle C, which lays out enforceable standards–as opposed to the agency’s other choice, Subtitle D, which sort of suggests that polluters not be bad boys.
Sierra Club members have been sending postcards to the EPA Director, Lisa Jackson, that say:
If the BP oil disaster and the Tennessee coal ash tragedy taught us anything, it’s that we can’t just take the polluter’s word for it anymore. I urge you to stand up to industry pressure and quickly issue strong, federally enforceable safeguards to protect communities from toxic coal ash. Continuing to ignore scientific and safety concerns comes at a high cost to our families, communities and economy.
Coal ash is hazardous, but less strictly controlled than household garbage. EPA must adopt enforceable federal safeguards, not suggested guidelines for states, to protect our communities.
To win the Missouri award, Peabody had to beat out such big-time polluters as Ameren. How did Peabody do it?